I am in my second semester (junior year)of a BSN program and some of my instructors either are misinformed on many subjects, or just make stuff up as they go along. A few admit that they are limited to their specialty and actually use the term "I don't know" which is much appreciated. Its frustrating. And if with my limited knowledge base I pick up mistakes there must be a whole lot more in the areas I am not so familiar with. Anyone else have this problem?

Oh yeah, absolutely...and the students rotating through the unit tell the same stories. It is sad because UTHSCA is supposed to be IT. Not just incompetence, but worse, some instructors would take upon themselves to try and force students out that they don't like (ME). If it had not been for the MSN students and my BSN colleagues I would never have graduated. For my final project in community health I got my sister to help me make a full Italian style feast for these wonderful people.

I will never forget their kindness and I will never forgive the university for completely alienating me and so many others. I will not go back for more education....the thought is terrifying to me.

Boy did YOU touch a nerve! Stick with it, stick TOGETHER as students if you can. Get through it together.

And do me a favor, if you see a nursing student that is getting trashed by instructors give the nurse some support, it meant the world to me.

Wow, my longest post ever!

Can you post examples of misinformation or making things up? It has been a few years since I was in school but I didn't experience this phenomenon. I am interested in nursing education.

Redshiloh, what is UTHSCA? Don't give up on further education. You might be more interested in a few years, once you have recovered from a bad experience. Maybe you can find another school.

Originally posted by KMSRN

Can you post examples of misinformation or making things up? It has been a few years since I was in school but I didn't experience this phenomenon. I am interested in nursing education.

Redshiloh, what is UTHSCA? Don't give up on further education. You might be more interested in a few years, once you have recovered from a bad experience. Maybe you can find another school.

Well, there are many examples. But lets got IM injections. We were told. ( make sure there are no air bubbles, any air bubbles at all in an IM injection can be fatal. what about airlock injections? that is a bolus of air. I could give you more examples but I prefer to remain anonymous, and being that my class mates read this board, if I did that, I would give myself up. But basically they just go on a tirade with information that seems to me that they are extrapolating out conclusions as they are standing in front of the class w/o regard to reall knowledge.

Fastest way to get my respect as an instructor...say "I do not know the answer to that question but will find out for you". It shows that not only do they want to be sure I learn...but they are interested in learning also.

:)

Originally posted by NP2BE

Well, there are many examples. But lets got IM injections. We were told. ( make sure there are no air bubbles, any air bubbles at all in an IM injection can be fatal. what about airlock injections? that is a bolus of air. I could give you more examples but I prefer to remain anonymous, and being that my class mates read this board, if I did that, I would give myself up. But basically they just go on a tirade with information that seems to me that they are extrapolating out conclusions as they are standing in front of the class w/o regard to reall knowledge.

I had a couple of instructors tha were just out of date. They continued to teach things that are really sort of gone. One quick example was the old Emmerson chest tube pumps. We were taught all about them. Now days you rarely see one everyone uses the Atrium system or compatible Atrium is a company name and I am sure others make the same type of closed system chest tube sets.

I also had one instructor that was totally hungup on religion and thought that with every assesment students should ask Pts their religious beleifs and preferences.

I went through the same thing when I was in school. No offense to any professors out there - but when teaching certain nursing courses, it's best if the professor is still actually working in a hospital. Now, for general nursing classes like research and management, that's not really an issue. But I remember in my OB class, the instructor hadn't worked in a hospital for over 10 years, so she really didn't know any more about new advances than we did. She gave us a lot of out-of-date information and "I don't knows" during her lectures. The next class I took was Peds, and the instructor still worked part time as a PICU nurse. She was excellent and we respected her so much more because she was still in the trenches and seemed to know EVERYTHING!

By Np2be

Well, there are many examples. But lets got IM injections. We were told. ( make sure there are no air bubbles, any air bubbles at all in an IM injection can be fatal.

One of the reasons I gave up on nursing classes is the general attitude that medical facts are not important as long as the psychosocial reasoning is.

Next time ANYONE that calls themselves a health professional gives you this kind of information challenge them into giving you thier source.

I would have asked them straight-up in front of everyone how it is that these gasses in the "fatal" airbubble would not diffuse to equillibrium. They'd chew on that for awhile before espousing urban legend as part of thier curriculum!

Originally posted by Peeps Mcarthur

By Np2be

One of the reasons I gave up on nursing classes is the general attitude that medical facts are not important as long as the psychosocial reasoning is.

Next time ANYONE that calls themselves a health professional gives you this kind of information challenge them into giving you thier source.

I would have asked them straight-up in front of everyone how it is that these gasses in the "fatal" airbubble would not diffuse to equillibrium. They'd chew on that for awhile before espousing urban legend as part of thier curriculum!

Is this something new? Instructors not competent???!!!

make sure there are no air bubbles, any air bubbles at all in an IM injection can be fatal. what about airlock injections? that is a bolus of air.

That's pretty bad. I agree that nursing school instructor in clinical classes need to be clinically competent.

Boy, can I relate with this subject. There was an instructor with students doing clinicals at the facility where I was working. She asked me why was there coloring in the tube feeding of a certain patient, where did a suprapubic catheter go and what was it and asked me to demonstrate a central line dressing change as it had been a looonnngg time since she had done one. I happened to know that she had never worked as a nurse, just went straight to teaching. Yikes, big time.

Np2be,

It's a good policy not to challenge instructors I guess. Just reading the materials that they gave us made me mad enough to throw them:( across the room. The mention of anything medical will get them on the defensive as well. This will be especially true if you talk in terms of medical diagnosis and therapy.

Remember that nursing is a psychosocial approach, which is not medicine at all but rather abstract theory. They don't expect to be blindsided by medical facts while they're teaching nursing theories. It'll just get them all in a froth.

Don't expect NP school to get that much more medical I think. Why would the curriculum of NP school suddenly have a medical foundation if there are 4 years of preparation (BSN) that pretty much dismisses the medical model in its philosophy from the start.

I wanted to ultimately diagnose and treat disease too. I decided that I wanted to get a medical foundation for that so I chose another path. My GPA and my sanity remain intact.